Rolling Obituary Thread: 2021

Courtney Love was pretty good--her first film, I think

She was in Sid & Nancy a full decade before PvLF.

I wasn't particularly close--it was her seventh film. Maybe the first one she got a lot of attention for?

It established her as a actress/Movie Star.

I too was shocked that Larry Flynt was only 78. He's looked like shit my entire life. Also thought he was dead.

Good for him for taking a bullet for love

I've never seen People vs. Larry Flynt, but it seems like all of its thunder was stolen by Boogie Nights the next year.

I remember it being a pretty great movie, and courtney was excellent in the role

Yep, P v LF written by the same team who wrote Ed Wood and the Eddie Murphy Dolemite movie, and equally entertaining - tho possibly problematic nowadays in presenting Flynt solely as a roguish free speech rebel. Definitely think it's a much better film than Boogie Nights fwiw.

(In the same vein they also created/head-wrote/showran the American Crime Story: OJ Simpson maxiseries, and (to lesser effect) the Margaret Keane bio Big Eyes, if Ward's triangulation sparks anyone to collect the set. In all instances it's more useful to see them as sketched stories about weird people having an against-the-odds-of-mainstream-culture success, rather than a detailed and accurate portrait of real events and lives.)

Yep, also Forman's next film, Man in the Moon, which again conforms to type.

thought I was forgetting another - have always avoided that one.

Man On The Moon was fab. I really like Forman's movies - Taking Off is realy, really wonderful.

I mean, I saw Man On The Moon hortly after reading the Szmuda boo so it was annoying how it needlessly futzed the details and narrative, but it's an effective biopic.

Love Taking Off too, going in my top 10 if / when I vote in the movies poll.

Fond memories of TPVLF and MOTM though haven't watched either in about 20 years.

For some reason MotM has been on BBC iplayer forever and is probably still there

It definitely is - I was browsing yesterday.

some mandela effect shit going on with larry flynt, i also thought he was already dead

i don't think there's much mystery, he's looked like he *ought* to be dead for a long time

I can't fucking believe he was only 78 lmao

I mentioned it last night in a room with three other people and all four of us felt certain that he died like a decade ago

Prolly thinking of Al Goldstein...

After the Olmos/Elizondo thing perhaps I'm a bit cautious but nonetheless

Just got the terrible news of Chick Corea passing.
Stunned

— Vernon Reid (@vurnt22) February 11, 2021

It was posted on his official FB page: https://www.facebook.com/27696763923/posts/10158422599898924/?d=n

Wtf

His original Return to Forever album on ECM was one of my eBay finds last year that helped get me through a long stretch of quarantine

Total virtuoso genius that I admittedly still mostly knew best for being a scientologist.

Johnny Rogan, music writer and journalist, 67.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/johnny-rogan-leading-music-biographer-dies-aged-67-1.4483058

Aww, he wasn't a very good writer but in retrospect The Severed Alliance was where I first learned Morrissey was a massive racist, so props for that.

I read Rogan's Kinks and Neil Young books back in the 80s, and his Ray Davies biography more recently. Not a great prose stylist, but he could convey controversial opinions that, I think, would be frowned upon by more contemporary biographers and their readers. People nowadays aren't usually picking up a book about a favourite musician to hear about all the things they did wrong.

Brayden Smith, the controversial final big money champ of the Trebek-era on Jeopardy.

https://tvline.com/2021/02/12/jeopardy-brayden-smith-dead-age-24-five-time-champion/

Percussionist - composer Milford Graves.

I am gutted.

Ooof, huge one for several of us. Sydney Devine.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/sydney-devine-dead-scots-showbiz-23494635

RIP Sydney. I imagined him like Glen Michael and Stanley Baxter, living forever.

RIP Sydney, the amount of times I spent as a kid looking at those enormous posters for Sydney Devine and Robert Halpern at the Pavilion from a rain soaked bus window on the way in to town, felt like they were plastered everywhere.

Saw Sydney performing outdoors at a big Commonwealth Games festival on Glasgow Green a few years ago, one for the bucket list.

SF/fantasy artist Rowena Morrill, 76
https://locusmag.com/2021/02/rowena-morrill-1944-2021/

In a similar vein, and not sure I saw anyone else pick it up so apologies if he's already been mentioned, but underground comix icon S Clay Wilson.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/arts/s-clay-wilson-dead.html

Rupert Neve, legendary audio engineer.

https://www.rupertneve.com/news/rupert-neve-1926-2021/

Saw Sydney performing outdoors at a big Commonwealth Games festival on Glasgow Green a few years ago, one for the bucket list

Yeah, we were at that too. He was endearingly rubbish.

Openly queer singer/RuPaul confidant Ari Gold

https://www.out.com/news/2021/2/14/trailblazing-queer-artist-ari-gold-dies-age-47

Actor Tishuan Scott (probably best known as the host of the couples seminar in Computer Chess). Car accident.

I don't recall meeting him, but--like a lot of Houston-area actors--I had him on Facebook. He was a very troubled individual, struggling with bipolar disorder and all the problems that entailed (just last week he shared he'd been sent to the ER after an altercation during a traffic stop).

Welsh snooker player Doug Mountjoy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/51946334

RIP Doug. My contribution to the ILX Pre-Covers Morrissey's "World Peace Is None Of Your Business" comp. was a track called "Mountjoy", not sure many people spotted the reference though.

Journalist James Ridgeway, 84.

http://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/obituaries/james-ridgeway-dead.html

Ian Pattinson, undoubtedly the filthiest writer on Radio 4 - he used to write the Samantha/Lionel Blair material for ISIHAC.

I see we’ve had a letter from a Mrs Trellis of North Wales.

It is with sorrow that we announce the death of our client and friend, Iain Pattinson.

We are enormously proud of him and his extraordinary career, most notably as the writer of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. pic.twitter.com/KI6AM1aUvp

— PBJ Management (@pbjmanagement) February 15, 2021

Johnny Pacheco, legendary Latin bandleader and co-founder of Fania Records, 85.

Oh damn

Although also "people you thought were already dead"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/15/arts/music/johnny-pacheco-dead.html

Pacheco , co-founder of Fania, and busy songwriter & bandleader had an impressive run

Oh, RIP. Celia & Johnny is a classic, one among many.